Communication technologies have been the single most important market drivers in the current century. Not only people but enterprises too are heavily dependent on it to be able to do even the most basic of day to day activities. This has led to a revolution of sorts which started with the proliferation of mobile phones and giving everyone the ability to stay connected at all times.
Telecom companies too have had to evolve very fast from being basic fixed line service providers to being able to provide mobile, data and cable services. The latest addition to this has been their ability (albeit of only a few) to provide cloud based services.
Telecom companies have had to be on their toes as the landscape has changed very fast and the consumers expect their CSP (Communication Service Provider) to be at the forefront of providing them the latest and greatest technology available in return for their loyalty. This in turn has resulted in ever growing complexities in managing their clientele. On the other hand, like all challenges this provides CSPs with an opportunity to be able to enhance the customer experience and increase ARPU (Average Revenue per User).
Telcos have thus been constantly scaling the challenges thrown at their OSS (Operations Support Systems) and the market driver BSS (Business Service Systems).
Some of the recent challenges and the opportunities thrown are :-
a) Personalization of Customer Services :- Truly speaking in a B2C space, with the advent of mobile phones and the ability to connect to the internet using them has given the consumers choices to choose from the content and services available online. More and more consumers are using the same device for connecting to the web and downloading content when needed. Telcos thus have a challenge in upgrading their BSS and OSS systems to allow for real-time rating of the consumers rating.
This has in turn prompted Telcos themselves to provide apps to their consumers which has become a new stream of revenue for them. At the same time, they are fast moving towards complex tiered pricing/rating model to segment their customers to increase their revenue while encouraging them to consume more. Also, this gives them an opportunity to expand to cross-industry application using which the customers can use their data devices to connect to non-Telco enterprises like hospitals, banks,etc.
For software providers, in turn this has thrown open the doors for recommending systems that will not only support very complex pricing but will be able to do so in real-time.Moreover, the system should be able to provide the correct bill based on revenue shared with the cross-business entities whose service is provided over the CSP network.
b) Decreased time to market for new services :- In the fast paced and changing customer focused Telecom industry, companies need the ability to be able to provide the latest and the most relevant services to their subscribers.
Telcos have long realized that one of the major differentiators for their subscribers is the CSP's ability to provide the above. CSPs have traditionally had to handle disconnected systems for BSS and OSS to offer a new service. Any change in one system would require changes to be made in all the other downstream systems to be able to provide the service to their subscribers. And to top it all, the changes have to be in synch for it to work.
This calls for a solution to handle the service definition at only one place and then be able to automatically propagate it to the downstream systems. In simpler IT terminology, it requires a Product hub to create the product and use SOA to send to each of the BSS and OSS systems the required attributes for them to make it available to subscribers to use. This rapid design and delivery of service would not only make introduction of new services faster but will also decrease the margin for error in providing it.
c) Bundling of services :- Customers are more likely to stay with a CSP if they use more than one type of service from the provider. From the customer's viewpoint, it offers him a single bill to view all their usage and only one agency to interact with for all their communication needs. This in turn decreases customer churn. Loosely speaking, more the services that a customer uses from a CSP, the harder it is for him to move to another CSP.
CSPs need to be able to provide a different pricing promotion for customers who use multiple services by offering discounts to retain their highest ARPU entities.
d) Customer Care :- One of the most important functions for BSS systems in Telco has been to provide subscribers with superior support for the service offered.Customers need the ability to transact with the CSP without having to be queued at the operator point. Also, they would want their transactions to be completed over multiple channels.
From a CSP perspective, a more informed customer will be able to resolve his/her own queries over the web and this would in turn decrease the burden of having to manage huge call centers. Providing customers with transactional amd informational data online can also bring about the possibility of strategically placing new offerings which the customer might be interested in.
Customer facing BSS systems need to be able to provide them with an easy to search and intuitive knowledge base that they can leverage for resolving their queries. More importantly, they also need the ability to be able to chat or call the customer care rep from the same interface. This would also require a back-end system that is fully integrated to the customer's profile and his current transaction to be able to recommend the latest services or an upgrade service to the customer.
e) Customer Experience :- Customer experience in Telco consists of not only the customer's experience with the brand over the communication channels but also consists of the ability to provide superior grade coverage of network services which is called as Customer Service Assurance (CSA). CSA also entails collection of all customer data and re-use it for decreasing staff efficiency and data leakage.
CSPs today are understanding the need for a superior CEM for the customer as well as CSA being an integral part of the strategy to keep a customer satisfied.
CEM solutions should not only offer the customer a unique brand experience over multiple channels and ability to transact across them but also be pro-active in providing service coverage from the OSS systems. Companies would need to tie together all the information they have from the various customer touch points and this would then require a SOA connected system that ultimately enriches the customer information using a Master Data Management (MDM) solution. CSPs would also need to provide the customer the facilities for calling over the mobile/fixed line as well as provide them the ability to chat/call over the web. Most importantly, the solution should be able to understand the customer's profile and behavior and be able to provide real time offers to the customer across channels.
f) Business Analytics :- Customer information has traditionally resided in a disjointed set of applications with the CSP but now, more than ever, with more systems being added to handle different systems, it becomes necessary to be able to analyze the customer value and behavior.
CSPs need to invest in systems that would allow them the ability to integrate with their multiple BSS and OSS systems and bring out the tru value of the customer as well as reduce revenue leakage. A business analytics solutions should also be able to use all this information to provide the customer with real time product buy/upgrade offerings to increase profitability.
g) Ability to handle Cloud Services :- Enterprise customers are increasingly enthusiastic about the Cloud based services being offered by their service providers, be it SaaS (Software as a Service) or PaaS ( Platform as a Service) or simple IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). This provides a huge opportunity for CSPs to be able to leverage their existing infrastructure to provide cloud services and add to their revenue.
Complexity in cloud based services comes with the on-demand nature of services as required by businesses and CSPs need to be able to not only be able to provide them the same through their OSS systems but also be able to rate them in real-time. CSPs can then not only price their offerings using their tiered pricing but also be able to price for data stored in their managed servers.
2012 is largely being thought of as the year of inflection for CSPs with the global sales of Smartphones have for the first time outpaced the global PC sales.
Moreover, this is also the year when China mobile replaced Vodafone from the Top 6 global CSPs in terms of revenue.
CSPs are moving fast to cover lost ground and be able to deliver to the subscriber's expectations and even surpass them by upgrading their OSS and BSS systems. This is a tremendous opportunity for software and hardware manufacturers in Telco segment to use this as a huge revenue generating exercise as well as increase CSPs under fold.
Telecom companies too have had to evolve very fast from being basic fixed line service providers to being able to provide mobile, data and cable services. The latest addition to this has been their ability (albeit of only a few) to provide cloud based services.
Telecom companies have had to be on their toes as the landscape has changed very fast and the consumers expect their CSP (Communication Service Provider) to be at the forefront of providing them the latest and greatest technology available in return for their loyalty. This in turn has resulted in ever growing complexities in managing their clientele. On the other hand, like all challenges this provides CSPs with an opportunity to be able to enhance the customer experience and increase ARPU (Average Revenue per User).
Telcos have thus been constantly scaling the challenges thrown at their OSS (Operations Support Systems) and the market driver BSS (Business Service Systems).
Some of the recent challenges and the opportunities thrown are :-
a) Personalization of Customer Services :- Truly speaking in a B2C space, with the advent of mobile phones and the ability to connect to the internet using them has given the consumers choices to choose from the content and services available online. More and more consumers are using the same device for connecting to the web and downloading content when needed. Telcos thus have a challenge in upgrading their BSS and OSS systems to allow for real-time rating of the consumers rating.
This has in turn prompted Telcos themselves to provide apps to their consumers which has become a new stream of revenue for them. At the same time, they are fast moving towards complex tiered pricing/rating model to segment their customers to increase their revenue while encouraging them to consume more. Also, this gives them an opportunity to expand to cross-industry application using which the customers can use their data devices to connect to non-Telco enterprises like hospitals, banks,etc.
For software providers, in turn this has thrown open the doors for recommending systems that will not only support very complex pricing but will be able to do so in real-time.Moreover, the system should be able to provide the correct bill based on revenue shared with the cross-business entities whose service is provided over the CSP network.
b) Decreased time to market for new services :- In the fast paced and changing customer focused Telecom industry, companies need the ability to be able to provide the latest and the most relevant services to their subscribers.
Telcos have long realized that one of the major differentiators for their subscribers is the CSP's ability to provide the above. CSPs have traditionally had to handle disconnected systems for BSS and OSS to offer a new service. Any change in one system would require changes to be made in all the other downstream systems to be able to provide the service to their subscribers. And to top it all, the changes have to be in synch for it to work.
This calls for a solution to handle the service definition at only one place and then be able to automatically propagate it to the downstream systems. In simpler IT terminology, it requires a Product hub to create the product and use SOA to send to each of the BSS and OSS systems the required attributes for them to make it available to subscribers to use. This rapid design and delivery of service would not only make introduction of new services faster but will also decrease the margin for error in providing it.
c) Bundling of services :- Customers are more likely to stay with a CSP if they use more than one type of service from the provider. From the customer's viewpoint, it offers him a single bill to view all their usage and only one agency to interact with for all their communication needs. This in turn decreases customer churn. Loosely speaking, more the services that a customer uses from a CSP, the harder it is for him to move to another CSP.
CSPs need to be able to provide a different pricing promotion for customers who use multiple services by offering discounts to retain their highest ARPU entities.
d) Customer Care :- One of the most important functions for BSS systems in Telco has been to provide subscribers with superior support for the service offered.Customers need the ability to transact with the CSP without having to be queued at the operator point. Also, they would want their transactions to be completed over multiple channels.
From a CSP perspective, a more informed customer will be able to resolve his/her own queries over the web and this would in turn decrease the burden of having to manage huge call centers. Providing customers with transactional amd informational data online can also bring about the possibility of strategically placing new offerings which the customer might be interested in.
Customer facing BSS systems need to be able to provide them with an easy to search and intuitive knowledge base that they can leverage for resolving their queries. More importantly, they also need the ability to be able to chat or call the customer care rep from the same interface. This would also require a back-end system that is fully integrated to the customer's profile and his current transaction to be able to recommend the latest services or an upgrade service to the customer.
e) Customer Experience :- Customer experience in Telco consists of not only the customer's experience with the brand over the communication channels but also consists of the ability to provide superior grade coverage of network services which is called as Customer Service Assurance (CSA). CSA also entails collection of all customer data and re-use it for decreasing staff efficiency and data leakage.
CSPs today are understanding the need for a superior CEM for the customer as well as CSA being an integral part of the strategy to keep a customer satisfied.
CEM solutions should not only offer the customer a unique brand experience over multiple channels and ability to transact across them but also be pro-active in providing service coverage from the OSS systems. Companies would need to tie together all the information they have from the various customer touch points and this would then require a SOA connected system that ultimately enriches the customer information using a Master Data Management (MDM) solution. CSPs would also need to provide the customer the facilities for calling over the mobile/fixed line as well as provide them the ability to chat/call over the web. Most importantly, the solution should be able to understand the customer's profile and behavior and be able to provide real time offers to the customer across channels.
f) Business Analytics :- Customer information has traditionally resided in a disjointed set of applications with the CSP but now, more than ever, with more systems being added to handle different systems, it becomes necessary to be able to analyze the customer value and behavior.
CSPs need to invest in systems that would allow them the ability to integrate with their multiple BSS and OSS systems and bring out the tru value of the customer as well as reduce revenue leakage. A business analytics solutions should also be able to use all this information to provide the customer with real time product buy/upgrade offerings to increase profitability.
g) Ability to handle Cloud Services :- Enterprise customers are increasingly enthusiastic about the Cloud based services being offered by their service providers, be it SaaS (Software as a Service) or PaaS ( Platform as a Service) or simple IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). This provides a huge opportunity for CSPs to be able to leverage their existing infrastructure to provide cloud services and add to their revenue.
Complexity in cloud based services comes with the on-demand nature of services as required by businesses and CSPs need to be able to not only be able to provide them the same through their OSS systems but also be able to rate them in real-time. CSPs can then not only price their offerings using their tiered pricing but also be able to price for data stored in their managed servers.
2012 is largely being thought of as the year of inflection for CSPs with the global sales of Smartphones have for the first time outpaced the global PC sales.
Moreover, this is also the year when China mobile replaced Vodafone from the Top 6 global CSPs in terms of revenue.
CSPs are moving fast to cover lost ground and be able to deliver to the subscriber's expectations and even surpass them by upgrading their OSS and BSS systems. This is a tremendous opportunity for software and hardware manufacturers in Telco segment to use this as a huge revenue generating exercise as well as increase CSPs under fold.